


Her Fragrance and Her Radiance

by LyraNgalia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, F/M, His Last Vow Spoilers, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 17:45:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1826761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock Holmes awakes in the hospital, the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is a splash of blood red, a rose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Fragrance and Her Radiance

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Arwel Wyn Jones' revelation that the red rose in Sherlock's hospital room was [left there by Irene Adler.](https://twitter.com/bakerstbabes/status/432524502422278144)

 

> “I am beginning to understand,” said the little prince. “There is a flower… I think that she has tamed me…”
> 
> \- From _The Little Prince,_ by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

 

He is certain it is the morphine drip, at first. The faint scent of vanilla and sandalwood that lingers in his hospital room, that refuses to be dispelled by the industrial strength cleaners. Surely it could only be so vivid if it were a product of his mind. But then he opens his eyes, the normally simple effort seeming to exhaust him, as if his eyelids were boulders that had to be pushed uphill, and he sees the splash of red.  
  
He blinks twice, the motion bringing much needed moisture to his eyes, and the blur of red resolves itself into a rose in bloom. The curve of the petals tells him, even from across the room, how long the rose has been out of water before it was placed into its current vase (about an hour). His mind begins calculating the number of places within an hour’s walk of the hospital where such a flower could be purchased, but three heartbeats into the calculation, he takes another breath, and realizes that he’s wrong, that his brain is going off on the wrong tangent.  
  
Sandalwood and vanilla. Blood red.  
  
The Woman.  
  
He starts in his bed when the realization slams belatedly into his brain, and only then does he realize there had been another piece of the puzzle, another clue that he in his morphine fogged state had missed, that he should have noticed immediately.  
  
The feel of smooth card stock beneath his fingertips rather than the sterile harshness of hospital linen. He is careful as he lifts the card up to his eye. Heavy, a familiar damask pattern. There are no words on the card, no identifying mark, no signature. Not even a scent.  
  
No, her perfume on a physical object would have been too obvious. Too much a clue for Mycroft, who was no doubt indulging in the irritating overbearing brother routine now that Sherlock was in the hospital. The scent of her perfume that had woken him was from her physical presence. It lingers like a ghost in the room, intangible but there for someone who knew where to look, like an immovable shade in the corridors of his mind palace.  
  
Very her.  
  
His fingers run over the card, not out of any affection or sentiment. His morphine drip is not _that_ strong. But he runs his fingers over it anyway, to find a clue to her passage that he knows is not there because she knows better, she has always been able to fool him. His fingers run over the card, over its finished edges, until his fingertips find three flaws in the surface that are so slight as to be almost imperceptible:  
.__  
  
He curves his fingers around the card, slips it between the mattress and the edge of his hospital bed to avoid the detection, and smiles, letting the morphine carry his consciousness away again.


End file.
